


The Player's Maze

by brightephemera



Series: No Identification Provided [3]
Category: Planescape: Torment
Genre: Blood, Gen, Investigation, Portals, Running Away, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unrequited Love, desperate plans, mage Nameless, mazed by the Lady, mazes, paranoid incarnation - Freeform, sigil, some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 17:37:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18103244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightephemera/pseuds/brightephemera
Summary: As the past crowds around, the Nameless One starts looking for a place to hide. Conveniently, anybody can get mazed in Sigil if they irritate the right person…inconveniently, people may still look for him.





	The Player's Maze

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s a side piece. My Nameless would never have worshipped the Lady just to see what happens. (The player, on the other hand…) He had to get to that maze somehow.

“Hail Lady,” murmured Nameless, clasping a rag doll of a woman crowned in little wooden blades, an image of Sigil’s greatest shadow. “Hear my plea. Grant my need. Hail Lady. Hear my plea. Grant my need.”

He was sitting in his room, yet another piece of evidence anyone might find. He had to draw the line somewhere. He had to accept something from his past tormentors, or else face his fate outdoors and starving. The Sensates, keen-eyed though they were, had developed a blind spot for his suite, and he relied on that.

He was through with trying to face life honestly. That was a pleasant fantasy. _He_ had already spoiled the world too much for civility to fix. So Nameless had to find another way to escape the truth. The Shadows, the memories, all of it. Old hag Ravel had given solid advice on one point: a prison could be a sanctuary, too.

“Hail Lady. Hear my plea. Grant my need.”

Someone knocked. He muttered faster. If it worked, no one would catch up with him.

Ever again.

Annah kicked the door open on the third try. Her tail lashed as she stalked to Nameless’s side. “What’s this then? Do yeh have ears?”

“I have ears,” Nameless said dully. “Hail Lady. Hear my plea.”

Annah’s eyes widened. “Are yeh worshiping the Lady, now?” Annah seized the doll. “Have yeh gone completely barmy?”

“I know exactly what I’m doing, Annah.” He reached for the doll.

She snatched it away. “She’ll maze yeh for thinking it. Yeh'll be locked up strait forever.”

“That’s the idea.”

Her green eyes sparkled when she was upset. He wondered whether that was demonic heritage or her own personal trait. “Since when did yeh hate life so much?”

“Do you think I enjoy what we’ve been doing? Do you think I want to _keep_ doing it? Finding out what _he’s_ done, trying to fix it? That poor girl. Dead because _he_ made her think he loved her. Do you think I want to stay to study just how awful he’s been?”

She rooted a hand in her hair. “I think yeh’re selfish to go. Yeh think yeh’re going to leave me here? With Morte? What did I do to yeh that would make yeh even _think_ –”

“You’re better off without me. Hail Lady. Hear my plea.”

“ _Stop it!”_

He felt the warp. He saw her folding into insignificance. He saw floating before him a face surrounded by blades, a still face, not even bothering with disdain, just informing him of his sentence. He felt in his core as his world slid through a scraping shadow and gave way to a slimy green path.

The Lady of Pain had rewarded his reverence.

He looked up. The world was gray. He looked to either side. The world was one of gray stones and green moss. He walked to the edge of the path and looked down, and instantly regretted it. The marbled gray lay far, far below.

The quiet was practically tangible. He was alone. No one was chasing him. No one was looking into his eyes. He was free here. Even the shadows wouldn’t find him on the mysterious mission that _he_ had probably provoked.

That left Annah free. She would not suffer Deionarra's fate.

He sat down and laughed until his chest was raw. He did it. This was his shelter. This was his best idea. The others would understand, and someday, maybe a long time from now, they would forget him. Wasn’t that all he wanted?

He fancied he could hear Annah’s invective at a distance, but he knew too well the difference between fantasy and reality. He knew that now.

*

“Yes, but are you sure it was her coming for him?” said Fall-From-Grace. She looked as calm as glass.

“Yeh know what her shadow feels like? Fer just a second,” snarled Annah. “I know what I saw.”

“He’s had worse,” said Morte. “Possibly. There was that time…well…actually, maybe he hasn’t had worse.”

“But she has not destroyed him,” said Dak’kon. His eyes were black, the color entire, with nothing moving within.

“She could’ve done that without yanking his body out the room,” Annah said sullenly. “Maybe yeh’d believe me if he was really…” she trailed off, looking green.

Morte clucked. “Are you discriminating against the perky posthumous, tiefling?”

“I’d discriminate his stupid face if he was ‘ere.”

“We have managed one maze,” Fall-From-Grace said thoughtfully. “There is always a way in, and a way out. We just need to find it.”

“Sure, got any more long-lost descendants to interview?” said Morte. “Speaking of which, I can’t believe it never occurred to me to be grateful that this guy doesn’t leave long-lost descendants. Can you imagine these problems plus child care?”

“Yeh’re funny,” seethed Annah.

Of course he was. People regularly underestimated the perceptions of a being who was 20% eyeball by volume. In a crisis, pointing out laughs was preferable to doing nothing.

“You are each…free, to go,” said Dak’kon. His _karach_ blade was rippling black and silver in thin hearts with a strong, steady beat. “I will search. You do not need to.”

“I will not leave so lightly,” said Fall-From-Grace. “In such a short acquaintance he has already led me to wonders, and no doubt his prison will be one more.”

“Yeh don’t understand,” said Annah.

“What’s not to understand?” said Morte. “Chief puts foot in mouth, plucky band of misfits removes foot from mouth. Easy.”

“Weren’t yeh listening? He _wanted_ to be mazed. He called on her. He doesn’t want to see m–us, any more, at all.”

In the momentary silence, everyone watched Annah’s face begin to crumple up.

It was Morte who saved her. “If I were going to respect his wishes,” he said, “I probably woulda started before now. I’m in.”

*

The maze was interesting.

He hadn’t known what to expect when he drew the Lady’s eye and disfavor. A prison cell, maybe, square and gray, where an inmate could starve in peace. As long as it was sealed away from _his_ legacy in Sigil, it would do.

But he found himself walking curved paths on mossy stones, with a drop down to almost forever on either side. Every hundred yards there was a stone arch no taller than the full reach of Nameless’s hands. At first Nameless avoided them. Every maze had an exit, this much was true, and this seemed like an easy one; but escape was not his goal. He walked past them.

He wanted to compare the appearance of this place to things Fall-From-Grace had seen, but they were safer apart.

Sometimes he stopped, and peered out into the distance, and thought he espied other arches on other islands. Other people’s mazes? That startled him. He had sought the Lady’s punishment to be alone, and in the entirety of the Planes there had to be places where one could be. Cramming people in like this seemed…lazy.

Morte would have something to say about that.

He wandered. Beneath his feet on arrival lay a silvery inlay in the mossy stone: the symbol of Torment. He had died on it enough times in other places. Here it served for a sardonic wink. Everything else was so generic. Dak'kon would know how Nameless' mind shaped this dour simplicity.

He walked the broken arcs. He counted the standing portals. He watched, endlessly, for a sign of movement.

For Annah to storm in in blistering fury, pronouncing his brain-box empty.

He shook his head, hard. Hadn’t _he_ been close to Deionarra, too? Any new version of himself might turn it all wrong, might use them until they were used up. The only way to protect these people from himself was to stay here.

He slept after a little while. The silence served for blanket.

*

“We’re wasting time,” said Annah. The group had already come in sight of the Brothel for Slaking Intellectual Lusts.

“Yves may already have heard word,” said Fall-From-Grace. “This is a story worth the telling.”

Annah planted herself in front of the intricately carved doors. “I’m not going in there.”

“Your talents may be better suited on the street,” Fall-From-Grace said calmly.

The tiefling swelled. “And yeh can just–”

“People talk to a beautiful woman.”

“Or at least they try,” wheedled Morte. “Let me take the north side, we can, ah, meet in the middle.”

“Fine.” Annah touched her hair. “And Dak’kon? Going to go endure or something for a spell?”

“I will walk,” said Dak’kon. “With no battle or interruption. Then I will see what I see.” The pulse in his karach was fainter, just lines like etching passing over the blade.

“Back outside his room,” said Fall-From-Grace, “at sunset. I think we stand a good chance, coming after him so soon.”

“And I’ll pin his arm if yeh get his legs,” Annah said darkly.

*

Nameless woke sore and hungry. The place was cool, but it was quieter than the Mortuary. Where else would his body have chosen to regenerate?

He opened his eyes. Moss on stones. Not far from him, a stone arch, one slab over two standing columns. Above him, pearlescent gray.

Right.

He stood. This place was dull, but not uncomfortable. He walked back down the twisting way to where the Lady had dropped him, on the symbol of torment over the stones. He stooped and ran his fingers along the cold silver. Nothing activated. Nothing changed.

Nobody was after him. At least, nobody he could see.

He laughed out loud and walked the winding length of his cage again. He could still see stones glimmering on other islands, but the gap between pathways remained dizzyingly deep. If he felt like dying faster he could hop in. The other platforms were too distant to jump to.

He stretched. He walked. He wished that he had found that damned journal of his. He wouldn’t mind a few blank sheets and a pen now.

He tried to think of things to think about that weren’t Morte, or Annah, or Fall-From-Grace, or Dak’kon, or Deionarra, or _him_. _He_ was gone. _He_ had touched nothing in this maze. _He_ had been exorcised.

The plan was perfect, only, half an hour later he was bored.

He stopped before an arch. A portal. The exit couldn’t be as simple as that…

He walked through. He felt a blunt wet moment of transition before he stepped onto…another mossy stone path.

He whirled. Another stone arch stood over him. To one side, the path led away in a direction it hadn’t before.

He lined up his finger along a ridge of the stone, then pushed in a hard stroke until his finger bled. He marked a tally “1” in blood on the stone’s side. He started down the new path.

No one depending on him. No one keeping score. The world was new.

*

Fall-From-Grace asked Yves Tale-Chaser, and got no stories. Word of the scarred man's disappearance was yet obscure. Grace promised to give Yves the chant once the story led somewhere.

Then she went to the basement. Behind a locked door lay a huge carved chest that held three sensory stones in velvet.

These were the ones she would not share with the Sensates.

She took the largest. It was blood red, with darker handprints on either side, not clasping without but pressing from within. She had taken it herself after it tried to kill her friend. The original trap had broken upon activation, she thought. She had never had the right mix of curiosity and need to use what was left.

She bowed her head and reached out. The setting that she fell into was unremarkable. A rude circle of white tents in a forest glade.

And a man by the center firepit, snarling. The man. Even having heard her friend's warning, it was hard not to look for his friendly alertness in the unkempt madman's bulging eyes. This was an aspect that the Nameless One would never willingly show her.

Descendants? No. Nameless's best hope lay in precursors.

“You shouldn't be able to see me,” he growled. “Where is my boy? Show me MY BOY?”

She asked the first question. “Have you seen the Lady here?”

Nameless-Who-Was cringed and looked around. Then he grinned craftily. “Not here,” he said. “No. I'm not AFRAID of her TOY CASTLE. I GOT OUT.”

Gold. “How did you get out of her toy castle?”

His face screwed up fantastically. “Haha! No. I never told you, I wrote it so NOBODY could see, NOBODY can read…I do not remember. How to read it. I left it behind…” He scratched himself and fell quiet.

“How would you get to it now?  What is the key?”

He bared his teeth. “No—NO. Not for you. NOT for YOU!”

The faint resemblance was gone. He leaped for her, hands gnarled as they grasped for her neck. Calmly she touched his wrist in motion. He yelped and recoiled, clutching the new red line on his forearm. The interview was over.

“Goodbye,” said Grace. “Thank you…for the hope.”

*

Nameless wished that he had made a larger mark on his original path. Something visible from a long way away. He could see other mossy paths floating over the gray depths. He had assumed that these were other mazes for other people…but as he investigated portal after portal, it seemed to him that the entire complex was his alone.

Apart from the standing stone arches, the place was featureless. Until he saw dark shapes at the far tip of one of the paths.

He walked, then jogged, then ran. It was a camp site, long abandoned. A charred pit, a fallen weapon. A mass of bone that had the look of…a book.

He scanned the blank gray sky, the whorls of mossy path. No one here. This maze had been someone’s, but surely a long time ago.

He dropped to his knees and picked up the book. It was cleverly bound in thin yellowed leather that had healed to the bone spine. He undid bony clasps and mouthed a spell to deflect magic as he pulled the book open.

It exhaled at him, hot, dry, and poisonous. His shield held as the cloud dispersed. On the exposed pages ran a dense stream of symbols written with a bold and carelessly flecked hand. Blood, he thought, as the parchment against his scraped finger seemed to press just a little closer and soak up a drop. He jerked his hand away.

In another few seconds he was sure he would remember the symbols. This book was familiar. He had written it. The memory skittered through his mind and he felt no desire to expose it to the light.

This maze. His maze. His refuge. Now it seemed that once before he had snapped, and displeased the Lady, and been swept up out of sight. Even this place had already been used. Not by _him_ – the hand and materials were too coarse, too crazed for _him_ – but some Nameless, somewhen. Not even his despair was original.

A note whispered from between the pages of the journal in his hands. It was written in similarly forceful style, but in a recognizable alphabet this time. It held instructions on how to use the stone arches to find the portal out. Yet another little favor for Nameless from Nameless.

He walked back and forth for an hour or more, out of sight of the camp, back to nudge the ashes with his toes, and away again. But the conclusion was already reached. If no place was untouched, he had to get back to his quest. To give his friends better than they’d gotten. To find his mortality, and maybe get the reason why he had been torn like this.

He picked up the book, read the instructions, and set off.

*

The party had slept in the hallway outside Nameless’s room. Nobody had talked about it. They just hadn’t left after exchanging word of their failed searches.

Dak’kon woke first. Well, Morte might have been awake, but when he wasn’t talking it was hard to tell. The skull had tucked himself under the doorknob so that it could not open without disturbing him.

The githzerai kept his back to the wall and renewed his grip on his _karach_. Annah was curled up opposite him. Her tail hadn’t stopped lashing all night. It would be bitterly ironic for the encounter with Deionarra’s kin to trigger Nameless’s desperate flight. There was a girl much closer who hung on his attentions now, one he had displayed sincere if detached kindness to, in contrast to the charming lies that had led Deionarra to her death. It was too late for him to run away from Annah's attachment. And yet…he was running. It wasn’t for Dak’kon to say which woman had gotten the better deal.

Fall-From-Grace had managed to sleep standing up, wrapped in her pale wings. They quivered from time to time like the flanks of a restless animal. When Dak’kon studied her chiseled face her pale eyes opened and met his. No challenge, nor even surprise. She smiled at him, then went to her knees and looked to the locked door.

Dak'kon accepted the quiet. He had spent the previous day in Sigil walking, waiting for guidance. With no one watching he was not slave to history: he simply existed, on the terms he held in his mind. Sometimes a walk alone served to clear the air.

Perhaps the day of solitary searching had been lonely.

“Oi! I’m up! I’m up!” Annah sat up while sweeping blindly with her red nails. “What is it, then? Did…” She swallowed. “Did he come back?” she said in a small voice.

“Yes,” said a deeper voice in the hallway. “Did he?”

Everyone who had legs got to their feet. Morte hovered beneath the doorknob, still ready to bite anyone who got close.

“My apologies for startling you,” said the man. He was tall and broad and done out in a colorful mosaic of armor, as if a Harmonium guard had taken up oil painting. “I am Caveth, an official of the Sensates.”

“Sword-swinger,” scoffed Annah. “What do yeh want, then?”

“The suite you sit outside has of course belonged to friends of the Gentleman for years. We have specific instructions regarding it. Particularly if its comings and goings…cease to produce goings.”

“Your Gentleman is not dead,” said Fall-From-Grace. “He still has an active claim on these rooms.”

“Oh, you mistake me! We would of course require reputable word of his revocation to rescind his lease. No, a seer not far from here simply had a…cut, of something. They say a…certain shadow has passed over a room in there.”

“Fer a little jink I might remember,” said Annah, with her chin jutting out. “What’s it to yeh?”

He popped off his helmet and held it before him. His eyes fairly glowed. “What was the experience? To be so close to her displeasure? Did you _see_ her shadow? Did it touch you? I would pay you a very great sum to capture your experience in a sensory stone.” He looked around, suddenly furtive. “In, say, the Prime material plane. Imagine the excitement!”

“Excitement? It’s not for yeh!” flared Annah. Dak’kon reached to touch her elbow. She jerked away but she didn’t jump on the guard. “Yeh want to know what set her off? He talked too much about things he knew naught about. Try it if yeh fancy dying.”

The door creaked and swung in. Morte yelped, blocked the opening, and bumped the Nameless One’s knees.

“What–?” said Nameless.

“I was fully prepared to bite your enemies’ shins, Chief.” Morte floated back up to eye level. “On the job.”

Nameless nodded. Dak'kon saw the effort it took him to smile. The man looked as dead as he probably felt. Still, Morte bobbed in unusually quiet satisfaction and Nameless looked around with interest. “Caveth,” he said cordially, “what is it?”

“Nothing we can’t discuss when the spitfire is elsewhere. Good day, sir!” Caveth bowed and left.

“Finally,” said Annah. She turned her withering green gaze to Nameless. “Don’ be thinking yeh’re in all our good books just fer comin’ back.”

Nameless did not take that in the spirit she meant. “I would very much like to not be in anybody’s book,” he said bleakly. “Annah, I was just trying to prevent...what's happened. But I can't get out that easily.”

“I could’ve told yeh that without going away forever.” She stalked out after Caveth. He stared after her, more awake now and wounded. This much could be said: this was the kind of man who took her anger hard.

“Come back inside,” said Fall-From-Grace. “You’ve seen too many places today. Rest, and let us face tomorrow together.”

“Grace,” he said. “I had a way out, it was all planned, and it turns out I’d tried it before. Again.”

“Difficult,” said the succubus. “But, my friend, the direction away from your past is forward.”

Kindness was not a currency Dak’kon carried much of. But he gave his teacher/student silence for his recovery.

Yes, Nameless was staggering across his own footsteps. He was learning. Already he was not the open book who had revealed the one mystery he was aware of to the nearest listening ear in the Smoldering Corpse. That man faded day by day, and his sadder but wiser replacement was _trying_. He only had to keep it together for one more quest, if he would stop chasing mazes: a shallow death, or a private fortress, or an hour's peace, or whatever he had expected to get when he drew the Lady's eye.

Stung and surrounded, Nameless didn't yet see the important part: when faced with his reflection, he’d chosen to go back to trying. The Lady had spared him, and he still had a chance.


End file.
